discotool-for-microcontrollers 0.1.6

Discover, list, and use USB microcontoller boards.

DiscoTool

Module and tool to discover all boards connected to USB.

Module

Exposes the get_devices_list() function. Find boards on the host's USB bus and tries to match them with serial ports and mounted drives, virtual or not. When a drive is found, it lists circuitpython information if available: CPY version number and main files in order of priority (code.py, etc.). Returns the list of boards found with their information, and a list of unmatched serial ports.

import discotool
deviceList, remainingPorts = discotool.get_devices_list()

Device list:

[{
	'manufacturer': 'Adafruit Industries LLC',
	'name': 'CLUE nRF52840 Express',
	'ports': [{
		"dev": "'/dev/cu.usbmodem144443111'",
		"iface": "CircuitPython CDC data"
	}],
	'product_id': 32882,
	'serial_num': 'F88EE0399C0E1FC6',
	'vendor_id': 9114,
	'version': '6.0.1',
	'volumes': [{
		'mount_point': '/Volumes/CIRCUITPY'
		'mains': ['code.py'],
	}]
}]

Operating system

It currently runs on MacOS, Linux and Windows. The requirements.txt and requirements-*.txt files list the requirements per platform.

discotool CLI tool

Install and use

The discotool command line program can be installed with pip. You can also import the module directly python3 import -m /path/to/discotool.

python3 -m pip install discotool-for-microcontrollers

When using a single board, it will be automatically selected for commands, these are the commands I use the most:

• discotool repl to connect to the REPL.
• discotool install ... to install modules via circup.
• discotool update to update modules via circup.

Configuration

Define environment variables to override the default command line tools used by discotool. They are called by appending the relevant parameters at the end.

• DISCOTOOL_SERIALTOOL (screen/PuTTY) command to connect to the REPL (tio, picocom, etc.)
• DISCOTOOL_CIRCUP (circup) command to call circup (pip install it for the default)
• DISCOTOOL_NOCOLOR disables colors in the output if it evaluates to True

Command line options

• --wait: runs the scan every second until it detects a board.
• --nocolor: do not output colors in the terminal (overrides all else).
• --color: output colors in the terminal (overrides all else).

No Command

• if no filter is given, run the list command
• if filters are given, run the repl command

Filters

Filters select boards from the list of devices found to run a command on them. They are combined with OR logic: anything that matches any filter is selected. All filters are NOT case sensitive. Filters are simple text matches, they don't support wildcards.

• --auto: select the first board found.
• --name: search in the USB name/description field. Eg: "clue", "QT", "S2".
• --serial: search the serial number of the board.
• --mount: search the volume names of the board. Eg: "CIRCUITPY".

Commands

• list lists all the boards that have been detected, with name, manufacturer, serial number. Lists the serial ports and file volumes, identifying circuitpython code files present, as well as CPY version.
• repl connect to the REPL of the selected boards using the tool specified, screen by default, choosing the first serial port found if there is more than one.
• eject eject all selected board drives, or all found if no filter given. (MacOS only for now)
• backup <destination dir> [<sub dir>] copy the content of the selected boards drives into the destination dir or the optional sub dir (that will be created for you). Each board is put in a directory with its name and serial number.
  • --create create the destination dir if it does not exist.
  • --date use a time stamp as subdirectory name, or add to the supplied name.
• circup <options> calls circup with its --path option to each selected board and passes all other options and commands to it.
• get <key> print just the value for the key, for the selected devices. Can be used with backticks and such in a shell script. Includes special keys:
  • pid, vid, sn: shortcuts for product_id, vendor_id and serial_num.
  • volume: path to the (first) mounted drive of the device.
  • port: (first) serial port of the device.
  • repl: (first) REPL serial port of the device.
  • cdc: (first) non-REPL serial port of the device.
  • main or code.py: full path to the main file for circuitpython.
• json print the output of usbinfo as json for all selected boards.
  • --pretty: pretty print it for human reading.

Screenshots:

discotool

DISCOTOOL_SERIALTOOL=tio discotool -n clue

discotool -n clue circup update

Samples of what output you can expect from some boards.